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A new company out of California wants to help you find your lost pet, stress-free — but they can’t do it without your help.

Your beloved pet may already be microchipped, and that’s a great thing if they get lost and are turned into a shelter or veterinary clinic. The shelter can scan the chip, find your contact information and return your pet safe and sound.

Unfortunately, many lost pets don’t make it to the shelter. Maybe someone takes them in instead of turning them in, or steals them for a multitude of nefarious reasons, or maybe the worst happens (which we really don’t ever want to think about).

Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a way to actually track your pet when they’re lost? Well, that’s exactly what California-based Escape Alert is hoping to make a reality with their new GPS microchip. Their Kickstarter campaign is set to launch on Tuesday, September 23rd and you can be a part of it.

The idea for the Escape Alert GPS microchip came about after a conversation company co-founder Janice Mooneyham had with her daughter. Janice had mistakenly thought that her pet’s already-implanted RFID microchip (the standard chip you’d get at your vet’s office) could track them down if they got lost. When her daughter informed her that the microchip only worked when scanned at a shelter or clinic and couldn’t actually track a lost pet down, the idea for the Escape Alert chip was born.

How Does It Work?

The tiny GPS chip, which will be implanted under the skin the way most microchips currently are, uses “geo-fencing” to track your pet if they’ve wandered too far from home. Essentially, you can use the chip’s internal GPS to set up a boundary area around your home (say, 50 yards in either direction). If your pet goes outside the invisible geo-fence, you’ll receive a text message or email alert that your pet has left the designated boundary area, so you’ll know almost right away if they’ve wandered off.

The internal GPS will allow you to track your pet’s location to within 5 yards, making it super easy to find them if they do manage to escape your property.

And you won’t have to worry about the battery dying — the Escape Alert chip will use a tiny battery called a piezo-electrical nanogenerator (how’s that for a mouthful?), which is powered by body movement. So, every time your pet moves, they’ll be providing extra juice for the chip’s battery.

Escape Alert’s Kickstarter campaign launches on September 23rd, at which point you’ll be able to pre-order your Escape Alert GPS implantable chip and be kept up-to-date on the chip’s development process and eventual shipping date. Until then, you can visit the Escape Alert website to sign up for email updates and send your feedback to the developers as they build their first working prototype.

So, what are you waiting for? We’re already on the list — are you?

Editor’s Note: The Escape Alert chip didn’t launch a Kickstarter campaign, and the site is no longer available. As well, a product like this for several years to come. Our pals at PetLoverGeek do an amazing job of explaining why this is in a 3-post series.

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Comments

Debbie Matthews

Congratulations and thank you so much for getting this going! I am from the UK where dog theft is at an all time high. Dogs are being taken from gardens and even in house burglaries or when just out for a walk. We have a campaign trying to get vets, rescues, highway agencies to check all animals for microchips but it’s been a hard slog. This is the answer to all pet owners prayers. How long do you think this is going to take? To see our UK campaign go to http://www.VetsGetScanning.co.uk.

Barbara Paz

FRAUDS!!! I just checked them out. They are frauds!! They are trying to get our money through crowd funding. I wanted to import this new product so I did some background checking and found on Google that the owner is a convicted fraud who disclaims any ownership of the company. PLEASE BE AWARE friends! And if you know of any legit GPS for dogs, Please! let me know. Barbara.

Barbara Paz

I suggest that the owners of PETGUIDE.COM take down this article as may people do not read all of the commends and may be cheated out of money. Please, Petguide, take responsibility as your readers may be frauded if you keep this article on your site.

Hi Barbara
Since the kickstarter campaign never launched in September and the website (that’s no longer operating) never took money, there’s no way to give this company funds for the microchip EscapeAlert planned to make. Basically, like thousands of other Kickstarter projects (in this case, it never even made it) it failed. Which is disappointing, because I would have bought one. I am hoping that someone else sees this idea and runs with it. It doesn’t look like EscapeAlert is operating anymore, much less planning for another campaign. If they were, in all probability, they would start up under a different name.

Peter Coupon

I would have bought one to. I would have thought that they made microchips like these to keep trace of your pets. It’s a must have.

Barbara Paz

Hi again,
If you read the article below, you will clearly see that the entire “company” is a scam. The scammer is a convicted felon, stealing millions from innocent people from previous scams. So now that you know this…. why do you insist on keeping this article on your site?
You refer to it as a Kickstarter project., but as you know it is not. It is a scam. The fraud article follows below

I find it interesting to say the least that you did not apologize to your readers and take down this article immediately. .

Barbara
I have read the article you sent, and it does talk about a person who was connected with the company who was convicted of real estate fraud. It also says she resigned from her position at Escape Alert. There is nothing in the article that says the company is a fraud. In my opinion, it’s a moot point. There no product to buy. And our article is simply stating information about a product we thought was great.

Aaron Sauer

aside from that- the smallest a GPS chip can get down to is about the size of a quarter and thicker. much too large to be implanted into an elephant let alone a companion animal. GPS requires also requires an external power source anyway. kinetic nano generator technology on the other hand does exist, but its is very new and much much too large large to be implanted into anything. Also- because its so new it would require 20 years of testing to the tune of millions of dollars- thats if it was only the size of a microchip. Further- you can’t file any type of patent on an idea. There has to be a tangible working prototype. there is and obviously never was a tangible working prototype.

Aaron Sauer

You should retract this article or delete it entirely. GPS can not be implanted. For GPS to work- it relies on an external power source- albeit a battery or plugged into a power outlet directly. There is a nano kinetic generator technology, but it is very large. GPS now can only be reduced to the size of a bottle cap- which is obviously much too big to be implanted into an elephant let alone a dog or a cat: further, with with nano kinetic/ generator to operate it- is absolutely impossible. To give discredit to the obvious- the line where it’s mentioned that 2 international patents were either awarded or even filed is total bull shit as ideas can not be granted- a working prototype is required. Lastly- to go to market with something as such would require years of testing at a very high cost- above and beyond what can be crowd funded. You really are not establishing any credibility with a story like this.

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